A WAVE of online fury was unleashed in response to Enniscorthy Minister Paul Kehoe’s comments about Irish Water over the weekend.

The Government Chief Whip said he believes the recently announced water charges concessions have satisfied many people.

Deputy Kehoe was speaking in the wake of a poll released on Sunday which shows that his party Fine Gael has dropped four points to 22%.

Labour remains unchanged on 8%, Sinn Fein and Independents are both up while Fianna Fail’s support remains stagnant.

Commenting on the matter, the Minister of State said the government will heed the poll findings but says it was taken before the announcement of water charge concessions.

“This opinion poll was taken prior to the announcement on Wednesday, and I have spoken to a huge amount of people over the past number of days, and they accept that the announcement on Wednesday brings clarity and certainty and the people I’ve spoken to are happy with the announcement that was made by the Government,” he said.

However, many people took to the web to voice their opposition to the comments.

“Just goes to show how out of touch our TD’s are – ivory towers anyone..” one wrote on Facebook, while another posted: “Nobody is happy. Let him live in the real world for a change. Can’t pay any more bills from this joke of a government.”

Twitter was also used as an outlet by those incensed with the comments, with one user tweeting, “‏Who the hell does Paul Kehoe think he is fooling?”

When contacted by The Echo, Minister Kehoe said he stands by his comments.

He said that he believes “it’s no longer about water charges” for the protesters and instead it’s “now about who has the best protest”.

“We all know what they’re against, but we don’t know what they’re for,” he commented.

Full story in this week’s Echo.